The Voice That Made Her Cry
by stormsandsins
Summary: She used to sit with her back flush against the wall, eyes shut tight and heart braced hard against the ache that nevertheless swept like a plague through her to land unceremoniously where it could do the most damage...


**Author's note**: I just realised I never posted this fic here. Wrote it eons ago, for a challenge. Enjoy!

**THE VOICE THAT MADE HER CRY**

She used to sit with her back flush against the wall, eyes shut tight and heart braced hard against the ache that nevertheless swept like a plague through her to land unceremoniously where it could do the most damage... like a bloodsucking insect that craved trembling lips and salty tears but, most of all, the dull pain in her entire being.

She learned to cry silently, too, because children should be (barely) seen and not heard.

When she scraped her knee on the church steps at her aunt's third wedding, Blair bore her mother's exasperation ("Couldn't you have been more careful? That dress is one-of-a-kind...") as Dorota cleaned the wound and poured fire on the raw skin. "Now it's ruined," her mother had added on a long-suffering sigh, leaving maid and daughter alone. Blair had sucked in a breath until she was sure the threat of tears was gone.

"Is good to let out, miss Blair."

"Then let _yourself_ out, Dorota," she'd snapped back, still sitting primly upon the paper towels Dorota had been thoughtful enough to put there. Those public washrooms - even holy ones - really were questionable in terms of salubrity.

Dorota, with concerned eyes and wan smile, let herself out - again, a thoughtful gesture. Blair knew the loyal maid would be standing guard just outside until she walked out herself. Fresh tears brimmed.

Alone, she gave them free reign, but not too much. Bad enough to know that her maid knew - she always did.

#

It happened one night while her mother was _en France_ preparing for the latest show ("There's so much to do. I can't take care of a thirteen year-old daughter on top of that, Dorota.") and her father was _en France_, too, possibly hiding from his ex-wife but failing abysmally since he seemed to have a _penchant_ for particularly handsome male models. Nothing ever changed, did it?

She'd agreed to some silly fool idea of Serena's that was no idea at all but rather Serena's way of sticking to her routine while dragging her out of her misery.

In Dorota's words: "This do you good, miss Blair. You be with friends." And so off she'd been hied, along with Nate and Chuck, on some stupid night out so her best friend could drink and shoot and grind and possibly fuck - not necessarily in that order. Oh, Dorota, precious Dorota who believed in everyone's redeeming values.

_What if I killed myself, Dorota? Would God choose to save me then? Would I still be a precious lamb?_

"Come on, Blair." Serena beamed as she beheld Blair's new Choo's and Valentino, and linked her arm through Blair's, leading the way to the predictable night, boys in tow. "Let's break the city tonight, the four of us!"

She looked carefree and vibrant on the dance floor later on, short skirt swishing enticingly in the air like so many invitations to stare at and envy those long tanned legs. Blonde hair took in the many-hued lights and wrapped itself around her fine-boned shoulders carelessly, artfully, like a lover's hands. Men looked at her. They always did. She hadn't a care in the world and she was beautiful, delightful, and flaunted it.

Something suddenly clanged beside her, startling her out of her observations. "Scotch?" Chuck asked, pushing the glass towards her and already plunging his nose in his own.

Blair eyed the dark amber liquid uncertainly. "Where's Nate?" she wondered aloud, glancing at the spot where she'd last seen him.

"Went for a smoke," Chuck answered easily, mimicking inhaling from a joint, with the index finger and thumb joined like an "okay" sign.

Blair stared silently at the generous glass he'd set before her, seeing nothing. "Oh," she said after a moment. Nothing new, Nate smoking up. Then she took a sip of the whisky - it went down like a shot of fire burning her innards - and wondered how people could drink this stuff and live to tell the tale.

Maybe that was the point. She took another sip. Still like liquid fire. Blair nearly hacked her guts out.

"Don't taste it," Chuck wisely advised. "Just shoot it down your throat."

The third try was a little bit less catastrophic. Blair deposited the glass carefully, playing with the rim.

"So why the long face, Waldorf?" Chuck asked after a moment, turning an if not affable, then at least listening ear. If Chuck wasn't the nicest boy ever, then at least he didn't try to change her mood by serving her own wild child purposes. Blair loved Serena, but sometimes her friend forgot what tact meant and her wants clouded her judgement - moreso since they'd begun prep school.

Blair looked up, met Chuck's eyes, and he nodded. "Ah," was all he said, understanding immediately. They all had something in common, the four of them, when it came to family matters. They _got_ each other, but sometimes it was uncanny how quickly Chuck jumped to the same page as her.

Well, her boyfriend was often too stoned to add two and two together, let alone read her mind.

Blair coughed. "Yeah." She took Chuck's advice, shot a mouthful down her throat, and thought she might perhaps be learning to appreciate the burn as it curled in her belly.

Until she pitched forward and vomited all over his shoes.

She wasn't sure, because, horror of horrors, she began to dry-retch and cry held-back tears on top of it, but she thought she didn't imagine him holding back her hair before he accompanied her back home.

#

That's when it all began, she thought as she stared at the plump Thanksgiving pie she'd baked herself for her father's homecoming. She'd sworn off Scotch for the rest of her life, but she'd learned to appreciate the burn as bile crept up or roared up her throat and tears threatened to debilitate her - a lady always kept her cool, she constantly reminded herself.

Something wrong? Get it out and forget about it. No use crying over absentees, for God's sake.

Her daddy wasn't coming home.

"Don't let them get to you," Chuck's voice seemed to call to her from a long-ago echo, soft and almost a breath that she still wasn't sure she'd heard back then in the first place.

Chuck didn't know her strength, then, she though, because she had none.

Defeated, she cut herself a large piece of pie and welcomed the knowledge of the oncoming burn, the brimming hot tears, the dull certainty that she was now powerless against her own actions.

_I'm weak_, she realised not for the first time.


End file.
